"Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct"
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Bradley slips the knife in with a Victorian smile: metaphysics, that supposedly lofty hunt for ultimate reality, is just a talent for dressing gut convictions in formalwear. Calling its arguments "bad reasons" isn’t mere snark; it’s a diagnosis of philosophy’s perennial temptation to mistake rationalization for revelation. We believe first, he suggests, and only afterward recruit logic as our press secretary.
The turn that makes the line more than an anti-metaphysical dunk is the second clause: "but to find these reasons is no less an instinct". Bradley isn’t offering a simple hierarchy where instinct is dirty and reason is clean. He’s saying the urge to justify is itself animal-deep. Humans don’t only have impulses; we have impulses about our impulses. The metaphysician, then, isn’t uniquely deluded - just unusually industrious in giving the tribe’s unspoken assumptions a backstage pass to the stage.
Context matters: Bradley is a British Idealist writing against the self-confidence of empiricism and the rising prestige of science as the sole engine of truth. He knows the modern desire for hard foundations, for beliefs that can survive cross-examination. His irony is that metaphysics often answers that desire with ornate architecture built on the same subterranean drives it claims to transcend.
The subtext lands uncomfortably close to home: our most rarefied debates may be less about discovering what’s real than about securing permission to keep believing what already feels unavoidable.
The turn that makes the line more than an anti-metaphysical dunk is the second clause: "but to find these reasons is no less an instinct". Bradley isn’t offering a simple hierarchy where instinct is dirty and reason is clean. He’s saying the urge to justify is itself animal-deep. Humans don’t only have impulses; we have impulses about our impulses. The metaphysician, then, isn’t uniquely deluded - just unusually industrious in giving the tribe’s unspoken assumptions a backstage pass to the stage.
Context matters: Bradley is a British Idealist writing against the self-confidence of empiricism and the rising prestige of science as the sole engine of truth. He knows the modern desire for hard foundations, for beliefs that can survive cross-examination. His irony is that metaphysics often answers that desire with ornate architecture built on the same subterranean drives it claims to transcend.
The subtext lands uncomfortably close to home: our most rarefied debates may be less about discovering what’s real than about securing permission to keep believing what already feels unavoidable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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